The invention disclosed herein relates generally to a support assembly for supporting a household appliance in a free-standing vertical relation with another household appliance, and more particularly to a support assembly for a microwave oven.
Cooking appliances have been available, for example, in configurations known as built-in wall ovens and such ovens feature combination cooking. Combination cooking often involves the use of a microwave cooking source in addition to a thermal cooking source or thermal convection heat source. Using combination cooking can result in a significant decrease in cooking time while maintaining the same level of cooking performance with that of conventional cooking means. For example, a user may select to bake at 350.degree. and at the same time, microwave at 50% power level for 30 minutes. In this instance, the user has to select the mode (bake) and temperature (350.degree.), select the additional mode (microwave) and power level (50%) and the length of time to cook (30 minutes).
While built-in wall ovens can offer advantages as noted above, there are several factors to consider concerning the installation of built-in units. U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 notes that, in the kitchen area, appliances are installed either as upright units or, more widely, as built-in units. U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 further notes that appliances which are built in require extensive modifications to the wooden carcass and facings with front panels which match the other kitchen units. U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 further describes other perhaps detrimental aspects of such built-in units, including the fact that wood is sensitive to dampness and the effects of heat and the requirement to provide each appliance with its own power supply, often requiring installation to be carried out by a specialist electrician. Moreover, U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 notes that the electrical appliances of such built-in units are generally not stackable for static reasons.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353 discloses a free-standing warming appliance 10 that can optionally be provided with a pair of oven support members 210 to directly support a built-in oven 14 and, in this respect, the free-standing warming appliance 10 and built-in oven 14 supported thereon may present one solution for installing a built-in unit. Each of the oven support members 210 is inverted-U-shaped in cross section and has inner walls that form a plurality of spaced-apart engagement arms 218 with mounting tabs 220 provided at their lower ends. The tabs 220 are sized to be inserted into a plurality of spaced-apart and collinear slots 222 formed in the top panel 76 of a warming drawer.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353, each of its support members 210 is attached to the warmer drawer chassis 20 by inserting the tabs 220 into the slots 222 in the outer enclosure top panel 76 so that the arms 218 engage the top panel 76. Screws are then inserted to attach the outer wall 216 to the outer enclosure lateral walls 70, 72. It is readily apparent from the above description that the support members 210 can be installed and removed with access to only the lateral sides of the warming appliance 10. With each of the support members 210 attached to the warming appliance 10, the top walls 210 of the support members 210 are generally parallel and spaced-apart to form a generally horizontal support plane 223 for the built-in oven 14. As shown in FIG. 14 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353, the oven 14 rests directly on the support member top walls 212 within a cabinet in a kitchen. Therefore, the free-standing warming appliance 10 directly supports the built-in oven 14.
Additionally, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 15 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353, the free-standing warming appliance 10 can optionally be provided with a pair of cabinet support brackets 224. each having a generally planar main wall 226 and a tab 228 extending generally perpendicularly therefrom. The tabs 228 provide forward facing engagement surfaces that engage the rear surface of a cabinet front panel of a kitchen to prevent the chassis 20 of the warming appliance 10 from being pulled out of the cabinet 12 when the warmer drawer 22 is pulled out of the chassis 20.
While the arrangement disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353 may be effective for some installation scenarios concerning built-in units, there remains a need to provide, with respect to built-in units comprised of household appliances, an arrangement for facilitating installing of the various household appliances. Additionally, it would be desirable to have an arrangement that reinforces the stability already provided by a free-standing arrangement in which the various household appliances comprising the built-in unit are configured such that the entirety of built-in unit can support itself on a horizontal surface without recourse to support connections to other structures.